Central Bank

What Causes Inflation?

January 29, 2023 Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Central Bank, Federal Reserve, Finance and the Economy, Inflation

Today’s discussion is focused on inflation and its much-debated return after many many decades. We thought we would structure our discussion around certain key questions. What is inflation? What is the textbook definition? How has it been understood in the past? What causes inflation? What are the supply and demand-side factors? Given that capitalism is considered such a powerful productive machine, why are the most powerful capitalist countries suffering from inflation today? What does it say about their productive system? What is, in fact, causing the current inflation? What is the Federal Reserve in the United States particularly — the most powerful central bank in the world — doing about it, and what’s wrong with what the Federal Reserve, and many other central banks, are doing? So Michael, why don’t you just start with your thoughts on the first question.

Only A People’s Monetary Reset Can Prevent A Feudalistic Technocracy

May 18, 2022 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Create! Central Bank, Finance and the Economy, Money

Fortunately for the United States, our national debt is in U.S. dollars. As former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once observed, “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.” Paying government debt by just printing the money was the innovative solution of the cash-strapped American colonial governments. The problem was that it tended to be inflationary. The paper scrip they issued was considered an advance against future taxes, but it was easier to issue the money than to tax it back, and over-issuing devalued the currency. The colony of Pennsylvania fixed that problem by forming a government-owned “land bank.”

Afghan Groups Challenge Effort To Seize Billions From Central Bank

April 26, 2022 Center For Constitutional Rights. Resist! Afghanistan, Assets Seizure, Central Bank, International Law, US Sanctions

New York – Afghan civil society groups are opposing the effort by a group of 9/11 families and other U.S. victims to seize billions of dollars from the Central Bank of Afghanistan to satisfy judgments against the Taliban. In an amicus brief filed yesterday, they argue that the $3.5 billion in blocked assets belongs to the people of Afghanistan and should be used to stabilize the economy and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe there. At issue are $7.1 billion that the previous government of Afghanistan placed in the New York Federal Reserve. After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Biden Administration froze the funds. In February, President Biden signed an executive order effectively allocating half for humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and leaving half subject to litigation brought by some of the 9/11 families.

Ecuador: US-Backed Government Scrambles To Privatize The Central Bank

February 7, 2021 Mint Press News Desk, Mintpress. Educate! Central Bank, Ecuador, Elections, US Dollar

With just days until Ecuador’s February 7 presidential election and four months remaining on President Lenin Moreno’s mandate, the Ecuadorian government and right-wing elites are still scrambling to privatize the country’s central bank. The process involves fast-tracking an emergency law dubbed the Humanitarian Support Organic Law, which will “lockdown” the central bank, siphon it from the public sector, and place Ecuador’s financial sovereignty at the whims of private interests. According to right-wing figures and the country’s mainstream media apparatus that protects and serves its interest, the unconstitutional move is being touted as a necessity.

No Turning Back After Central Bankers’ ‘Seismic Stimulus Shift’

April 7, 2020 Francesco Canepa and Balazs Koranyi, Reuters. Create! Central Bank, Debt, Federal Reserve, Global Recession

The tools used by the Federal Reserve and the central banks in the euro zone and Japan differ slightly but they mostly involve new, massive purchases of financial assets and cheap credit for banks and companies. At their core, they all revolve around one concept: gobbling up private and public debt, which has been growing for a long time and is bound to explode as the pandemic hampers borrowers’ ability to pay and bumps up government spending. Each central bank, albeit to varying degrees, is still paying lip service to the notions of independence from politics, a foundation of central banking since the 1980s. But as they hoover up a growing share of their country’s public and private debt, “coordination” between fiscal and monetary authorities has become the new mantra among policymakers.

Desperate Central Bankers Grab For More Power

September 21, 2019 Ellen Brown, Web of Debt. Educate! Central Bank, Finance and the Economy, Public Banking

Central bankers are acknowledging that they are out of ammunition. Mark Carney, the soon-to-be-retiring head of the Bank of England, said in a speech at the annual meeting of central bankers in August in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, “In the longer-term, we need to change the game.” The same point was made by Philipp Hildebrand, former head of the Swiss National Bank, in an August 2019 interview with Bloomberg. “Really there is little if any ammunition left,” he said. “More of the same in terms of monetary policy is unlikely to be an appropriate response if we get into a recession or sharp downturn.” “More of the same” meant further lowering interest rates, the central bankers’ stock tool for maintaining their targeted inflation rate in a downturn.

Daily movement news and resources